Roaring Twenties

The "Roaring Twenties" is a term for the 1920s, when the American economy was booming.

This was the first time in which ordinary working and middle-class people knew about the existence of the stock market and invested in it. Millions of people put their savings into stocks.

One of the high-flyers was "Radio" (Radio Corporation of America) going from about $15 in 1927 to a peak of $114 in 1929; after the stock market crash it sank to less than $3 a share in 1933.

Despite prohibition, people went to illegal "speakeasies" to drink, financing an underworld and making celebrities of gangsters like Al Capone. It was a period of licentiousness. Young women called "flappers" wore short skirts and danced in ways that showed off their bodies. This was a time when automobiles became common; couples could get in a car, escape from parents, and park in dark locations.

This period was also known as the "Jazz Age," a term associated with F. Scott Fitzgerald and his novels of the period.